CSS-Tricks Chronicles XLIII

Normally, I like to publish one of these updates every few months. But seeing as the last one dates back to September of last year, I’m well off that mark and figured it’s high time to put pen to paper. The fact is that a lot is happening around here at CSS-Tricks — and it’s all good stuff.

The Almanac is rolling

In the last post of 2024, I said that filling the Almanac was a top priority heading into this year. We had recently refreshed the whole dang thing, complete with completely new sections for documenting CSS selectors, at-rules, and functions on top of the sections we already had for properties and pseudo-selectors. The only problem is that those new sections were pretty bare.

Well, not only has this team stepped up to produce a bunch of new content for those new sections, but so have you. Together, we’ve published 21 new Almanac entries since the start of 2025. Here they are in all their glory:

• animation-timeline
• interpolate-size
• overlay
• @charset
• @counter-style
• @import
• @keyframes
• @namspace
• @page
• @view-transition
• attr()
• calc-size()
• counter()
• counters()
• hsl()
• lab()
• lch()
• light-dark()
• oklch()
• rgb()
• symbols()

What’s even better? There are currently fourteen more in the hopper that we’re actively working on. I certainly do not expect us to sustain this sort of pace all year. A lot of work goes into each and every entry. Plus, if all we ever did was write in Almanac, we would never get new articles and tutorials out to you, which is really what we’re all about around here.

A lot of podcasts and events

Those of you who know me know that I’m not the most social person in all the land. Yes, I like hanging out with folks and all that, but I tend to keep my activities to back-of-the-house stuff and prefer to stay out of view.

So, that’s why it’s weird for me to call out a few recent podcast and event appearances. It’s not like I do these things all that often, but they are fun and I like to note them, even if its only for posterity.

• I hosted Smashing Meets Accessibility, a mini online conference that featured three amazing speakers talking about the ins and outs of WCAG conformance, best practices, and incredible personal experiences shaped by disability.
• I hosted Smashing Meets CSS, another mini conference from the wonderful Smashing Magazine team. I got to hang out with Adam Argyle, Julia Micene, and Miriam Suzanne, all of whom blew my socks off with their presentations and panel discussion on what’s new and possible in modern CSS.
• I’m co-hosting a brand-new podcast with Brad Frost called Open Up! We recorded the first episode live in front of an audience that was allowed to speak up and participate in the conversation. The whole idea of the show is that we talk more about the things we tend to talk less about in our work as web designers and developers — the touchy-feely side of what we do. We covered so many heady topics, from desperation during layoffs to rediscovering purpose in your work.
• I was a guest on the Mental Health in Tech podcast, joining a panel of other front-enders to discuss angst in the face of recent technological developments. The speed and constant drive to market new technologies is dizzying and, to me at least, off-putting to the extent that I’ve questioned my entire place in it as a developer. What a blast getting to return to the podcast a second time and talk shop with a bunch of the most thoughtful, insightful people you’ll ever hear. I’ll share that when it’s published.

A new guide on styling counters

We published it just the other week! I’ll be honest and say that a complete guide about styling counters in CSS was not the first thing that came to my mind when we started planning new ideas, but I’ll be darned if Juan didn’t demonstrate just how big a topic it is. There are so many considerations when it comes to styling counters — design! accessibility! semantics! — and the number of tools we have in CSS to style them is mind-boggling, including two functions that look very similar but have vastly different capabilities for creating custom counters — counter() and counters() (which are also freshly published in the Almanac).

At the end of last year, I said I hoped to publish 1-2 new guides, and here we are in the first quarter of 2025 with our first one out in the wild! That gives me hope that we’ll be able to get another comprehensive guide out before the end of the year.

Authors

I think the most exciting update of all is getting to recognize the folks who have published new articles with us since the last update. Please help me extend a huge round of applause to all the faces who have rolled up their sleeves and shared their knowledge with us.

• Lee Meyer
• Zell Liew
• Andy Clarke (I can’t believe it!)
• Temani Afif
• Andy Bell
• Preethi
• Daniel Schwarz
• Bryan Robinson
• Sunkanmi Fafowora

And, of course, nothing on this site would be possible without ongoing help from Juan Diego Rodriguez and Ryan Trimble. Those two not only do a lot of heavy lifting to keep the content machine fed, but they are also just two wonderful people who make my job a lot more fun and enjoyable. Seriously, guys, you mean a lot to this site and me!

CSS-Tricks Chronicles XLIII originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

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